Atari 5200 Manuals

VIDEO GAME CARTRIDGE

FOR THE ATARI 5200 SUPERSYSTEM

ATARI

Insert your 5200™ game cartridge so the label faces you and reads
right-side-up. Be sure the cartridge is firmly seated in the center of the
console, but do not force it. Then press the POWER switch on. See your
owner’s manual for further details.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Fed up with Routine Space Flight? 1

2. Game Play 1

3. Using the 5200™ Controllers_ 6

4. Scoring 7

5. Strategy 8

FED UP WITH ROUTINE SPACE FLIGHT?

Looking for new frontiers to conquer? Then Vanguard is
looking for YOU! We seek courageous space pilots for
exploration of Planet Aterria. Come fly through the
tunnels of Aterria in the Vanguard ship of tomorrow.

Be the first to enter the fabulous City of Mystery
and face the great Gond.

High risk pay, five lives, bonuses!

Don't wait! Sign up for high adventure today!

GAME PLAY

So you enlisted for adventure, did you?
Well, you've come to the right place. Your
mission is to reach the City of Mystery at
the end of the tunnel and destroy the great
Gond with your four-directional laser guns.
Sound easy? Wait and see

First you have to make it through the seven
tunnel zones without getting smashed on the
tunnel walls, crunched by enemy objects, or
zapped by missiles. The more enemy objects you
destroy, the more points you earn, but the rougher it
gets. If you make it to the City of Mystery and destroy
Gond. you earn bonus points. Then you head into the
next tunnel, which also leads to the City of Mystery and
Gond. Then what? Well, to quote an old Aterrian saying,
"Life is just one tunnel after another."

I

■

Now before you climb into your
spaceship and enter the first
tunnel, take a look at the
options.

OPTIONS

One or two players. VANGUARD
is set for a one-player game.
Press the # key on the 5200
keypad to select a two-player
game

Single or Repeat Fire. VANGUARD
is set for Single Fire. To select
Repeat Fire, press the * key
on your keypad.

■ Single Fire. Press the red fire
button (any red button) each
time you want to fire.

■ Repeat Fire. Hold in the red
fire button and fire continuously

Tunnel, in order of difficulty, the
tunnels are NOVICE. FIRST.
SECOND, and THIRD. In the
NOVICE tunnel the pace is
slower, you never run out of fuel,
your enemies don't shoot, and
there are no barriers to trap you
in the Stripe Zone VANGUARD is
set for the FIRST tunnel. Press the
7 key to change tunnels.

2

Zone. You con start the game in
any zone except the City of
Mystery. VANGUARD is set for the
first (Mountain) zone. Press the 9
key to change zones.

When you have selected your
options, press the START button
and enter the tunnel

LIVES

Your spaceship has five lives
and earns a bonus life at
10,000 and 50,000 points. The
number of lives remaining is
shown at the top left of the
screen, along with the scores
and fuel gauge [Figure 1).

FUEL GAUGE

Keep an eye on your fuel
gauge as you fly through the
tunnels You use one notch of
fuel every second but gain a
notch each time you zap an
enemy object. It takes about 40
seconds to empty the fuel tanks.
Don't run out of fuel or you'll
crash You get a new supply of
fuel with each new life.

NOTE: You never run out of fuel
in the Novice Tunnel.

TUNNEL MAP

Use your tunnel map [Figure 1)
to see where you are in the tun¬
nel and where you're heading.
The blinking dot marks the loca¬
tion of your spaceship.

Scores Lives Remaining Tunnel Map

Fuel Spaceship
Gouge

Figure 1 - Game Elements

LASER GUNS

Now try out the laser guns
mounted forward, aft, and on
either side of your spaceship
[Figure 2). To fire the aft. star¬
board, or port guns, move your
joystick in the direction you
want to fire and press any one

PORT

STARBOARD

FORWARD

Figure 2 - Laser Guns

3

of the red fire buttons on your
5200 controller The forward gun
fires automatically when you
press the fire button IMPORTANT!
Your spaceship moves faster
when you are not firing.

TUNNEL TOUR

Ready for a short tour of the tun¬
nel? Then man your spaceship
controls, keep your finger on the
fire button, and take off!

Mountain Zone (Figure 1). This
zone's no picnic! First Mist
copters try to impact on your
spaceship, then Harley rockets
fire missiles at you. You can
destroy Mists and Harleys with
your lasers but you have to
dodge missiles, except when
your spaceship is operating on
energy pod power.

Energy Pods. When you fly
through a pod marked E, your
spaceship becomes indestructi¬
ble. You can't fire lasers, but
you can crash into enemy ob¬
jects and score points fast. Pod
power lasts only as long as the
VANGUARD theme music plays.
When the music ends, a siren
warns you to stop crashing and
start firing.

Rainbow Zone. From the Moun¬
tain Zone you fly up into a Rain¬
bow Zone sparkling with crystals.
The scenery's fantastic, but you'll
probably be too busy shooting
Helm balloons to admire it.

Styx Zone. Styx and stones can
break your bones, so steer a
tight course through here It
won't be easy with Harleys and
Mists shooting missiles at you in
the narrow passageways.

4

Rainbow Zone 2. Are you still
with us? Then down you go into
another Rainbow Zone. Watch
it! Ammo balloons are attacking
In force. Stay on top of them,
and fire in all directions. Whew!
What next?

Stripe Zone. Better decide fast
which route to follow in this
zone. Garime monsters jump out
and stomp on your spaceship
on the upper route. Barriers bar
your way on the lower route.

You can pass barriers if you
shoot them at the top or bot¬
tom; shooting them in the mid¬
dle gets you nowhere.

Both routes lead past enemy
bases and Floating Paynes.
Lasers destroy bases but not
Paynes. Sneak past Paynes
while their arms are retracting.

Take heart! Energy pods grow
along the lower route...if you
can only reach them in time

NOTE: Barriers and Floating
Paynes do not operate in the
Novice Tunnel.

Rainbow Zone 3. Yes. another
Rainbow Zone. Finish off the
Helm balloons, then head into
the Bleak Zone.

Bleak Zone. Flying Kemlus
snakes and spear-shaped
Romeda ships call this zone
home. Touch a Kemlus and he'll
carry you through the tunnel to
the tune of 1090 bonus points.

But beware! You only get three
rides. After the third ride, you
have to shoot to kill.

HINT! Kemlus snakes revive if you
touch the debris. So you con
shoot a Kemlus and then ride it
to score bonus points on top of
points. Just be careful not to
touch the debris after the third
ride.

A rain of Romeda ships follows
the Kemlus snakes. Shoot all the
Romedas you can, but be care¬
ful not to run into the debris; it's
deadly. Watch out for Romedas
in even-numbered tunnels.

Some of them return your fire.

Riding o Kemlus [ Rornedo

CITY OF MYSTERY

You can see that it isn't going to
be easy to destroy Gond. He's
well protected by the two bar¬
riers moving in opposite direc¬
tions in front of him (Figure 3).
Your lasers can hit him only
when (and if) the barriers move
in sync and leave an opening
you can fire through. Keep on
firing while you wait for a break
Meanwhile, dodge missiles
aimed at the spaceship's star¬
board (right) side and watch

5

Top Barriers Gone!

Bottom Barriers Missile

Figure 3 - City of Mystery

out for the lower barriers...
they're creeping up on you
Keep cool and don't panic. The
more time it takes you to hit
Gond, the more bonus points
you earn

NOTE: Gond doesn't fire at you
in the Novice Tunnel

CONTINUE FEATURE

When you lose your last life, you
can continue your mission from
wherever you are in the tunnel;
you do not have to return to the
beginning. To continue through
the tunnel, press the O key on
your keypad or your red fire
button when GAME OVER ap¬

pears on your screen. The lives
counter will reset to 5 and the
score counter to O

If you're holding in the fire but¬
ton when you lose your last life,
there will be no interruption In
the game The lives and score
counters will reset but GAME
OVER will not appear

TWO-PILOT MISSIONS

If there are two of you. the pilot
using the left controller has the
first command. When he loses a
life, the second pilot takes over
Pilots alternate turns until one
pilot loses his last life The surviv¬
ing pilot continues until he too
loses his last life, then the game
ends, Use the left controller to
start a new game or continue
through the tunnel.

Up

Down

Figure 4 - Joystick Moves

3. USING THE 5200™ CONTROLLERS

For solo missions, plug one 5200 missions, plug another controller
controller into jack 1 at the front into jack 2.
of the console unit. For two-pilot

6

CONTROL KEYS

Press START to begin a game,
PAUSE to freeze and unfreeze
action, and RESET to bring up
the options display.

To interrupt a game and begin
again, press PAUSE and then
START. To interrupt a game and
change options, press PAUSE
and then RESET

KEYPAD

■ # selects ONE or TWO
PLAYER option.

■ * selects SINGLE or REPEAT
FIRE option.

■ 7 selects TUNNEL option.

4. SCORING M

■ 9 selects ZONE option.

■ O selects Continue feature.

JOYSTICK

Use the joystick on your con¬
troller to steer your spaceship
and direct laser fire (see LASER
GUNS, Section 2). The joystick
moves the spaceship left, right,
up, and down on the television
screen [Figure 4). To move
faster, push the joystick as far
as it will go in the direction
you want to travel.

RED FIRE BUTTONS

Press any of the red buttons to
fire your laser guns.

Mi/

Mist ship

Harley

rocket

Helm

balloon

Ammo

balloon

Base

ENEMY OBJECT

&

70

points

Garime

monsters

■ ■

100-400

points

50

points

Barrier

I

800

points

80

points

Floating

Payne

*

Can t be
destroyed;
no points

> 4 *

100

points

Kemlus

snake

O

100-400

points

■

100-400

points

Romeda

ship

ill

W

100

points

7

BONUSES

Bonus Lives At 10.000 and 50,000 points

Riding a Kemlus (three times only) 1090 points each time

Destroying Gond 1000-8000 points

NOTE: The longer you wait to destroy Gond. the more points
you earn.

5. STRATEGY

mi/

FIRING SLOWS YOU DOWN. Hold
your fire whenever you need a
burst of speed to pass Paynes,
dodge missiles, or dive for
energy pods.

MISTS AND HARLEYS. Keep the
spaceship moving up and
down to avoid missiles, and fire
vertically against the enemy's
line of flight.

RAINBOW ZONES. Before entering
a Rainbow zone, advance your
spaceship to the middle of the
screen This will prevent you
from crashing into the tunnel
walls as you enter. To avoid get¬
ting zapped from above or
below, fire your starboard and
port guns alternately.

STRIPE ZONE. Go for the energy
pod first; then crash into as
many high-scoring targets as
you can while pod power lasts.
When firing, fire on approach
Don't fire at Paynes. You can't
destroy them, and firing slows
you down.

CITY OF MYSTERY. To stay alive in
the City of Mystery and earn lots
of bonus points, you have to
dodge missiles. Wait for the first
missile to appear, then quickly
move to avoid it. Keep changing
your position while firing at
Gond. If you're lucky, you'll hit
Gond before he hits you,

8

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ATARI

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